In recent years, small business-focused software has become more affordable and full-featured as technology has increased in availability. This is a wonderful development, as businesses of all sizes can draw substantial benefits from modern tools.

Problems arise when small businesses seek to improve their technology without properly considering what an optimized suite of apps will look like. The truth is, small businesses don’t benefit from one-size-fits-all solutions because not all small businesses can be easily categorized.

These small businesses may be tempted to begin by introducing automation into their daily operations, but even that may not be enough. Automation, or taking some tasks off employees’ plates, is a wonderful tool to help a small business scale, but integration—when apps remain in constant communication with one another—is what helps a small business grow.

This is where workflow management software can be invaluable to small business growth. It promotes integration and codifies the early days of small business operations by promoting transparency and adaptability.

Here’s more on what integration looks like for small businesses and how workflow management software serves as the missing piece of the small business puzzle:

What integration looks like

All small businesses want to grow, but not all small businesses have equipped themselves to do so.

It may not be apparent to them, either. Consider a small business that’s quite technologically savvy and decided to build a robust tech stack early in its lifespan, including capabilities for task management, communication, customer service, and more. In theory, this company has done everything right by providing tools necessary for meeting unexpected challenges as they arise.

That’s not always the case. Often, small businesses who adopt a piecemeal approach to technology across vendors will find themselves facing silos, with data sitting in one app unable to be transferred to another easily.

These problems arise because small businesses are splitting their focus on integration with two distinct methodologies: native integration and custom integration. As a quick refresher, native integration refers to the means of connecting different apps using the means provided by the software vendors themselves, while custom integration flows are built in-house by developers on a task-by-task basis to ensure a perfect fit.

Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages. Native integrations arrive ready to be of service, requiring no code to become part of a system, and provide instant value to businesses. On the other hand, these integrations often include only basic functionality and offer no ownership over how they operate—the software vendor handles this, not the company that purchased the software. Meanwhile, custom integrations are fully extendable and customizable, but require extensive resources and a more significant upfront investment due to their pricier nature. They have to be constantly monitored, as well, because if something goes awry, an employee must implement a fix right away or risk the entire system falling apart.

Workflow management software sits at the sweet spot between native and custom integrations, providing the best of both worlds with none of the downsides. The technology is easy to use and accessible to everyone at an organization, but won’t eat into a significant amount of a small business’s resources, including financial ones.

What small businesses should prioritize

Once a small business has identified a workflow management solution it thinks fits its needs, it’s absolutely worth taking a minute to consider the finer details before signing a contract.

The simplest and most direct way to guarantee workflow management software will be adopted within an organization is to find one offering a drag-and-drop interface. With so many processes and triggers to manage, it’s much simpler to have a centralized place from which to visualize how apps will be working together and make changes on-the-fly. This level of visibility improves adoption and eliminates silos, owing to how simply any employee can track the logic behind workflows and make corrections if data becomes bunched up.

It’s also important to learn how data is transferred between apps within a connected workflow environment. Too often, these sorts of transactions occur outside security measures put in place by a particular software vendor because, simply put, the disparate apps are built upon different foundations. It’s not important that an employee understand the intricacies of a particular secure exchange, only that it aligns with the rest of the ecosystem and receives constant updates to keep pace with evolving security threats and remains compliant with particular governance such as GDPR and SOC.

A shortcut exists for this level of legwork: When apps within a connected workflow management system are made by the same vendor, small businesses can rest easy knowing they’re covered within a protective umbrella. This concept of unification plays nicely alongside both native and custom integration, increasing the benefits of the positives and mitigating issues arising from the negatives. It’s not necessary that every single app share a vendor, but the more, the merrier—and the more protected.

When choosing a particular vendor to built out a tech suite, small businesses can check those companies’ stances on data privacy. Consumers are wising up to the fact that their data is a valuable thing, and they’ll expect to receive the utmost protection and anonymity, when possible. It only takes a single data breach to eliminate all trust and for a customer to abruptly take its business elsewhere; the best software vendors are the ones who place privacy above all else.

Public privacy statements are a good place to start, but small businesses should look to a vendor’s AI models, as well, to ensure they’re not trained using customer data. Sure, a small business may not think it’ll be using AI anytime soon, but the technology is finding its way into even the smallest and most basic of functions, so it won’t be long before a particular customer’s data will be in play.

Benefits of workflow management software

Once a small business has implemented a few workflows, it’ll be impossible to remember how they operated beforehand.

The benefits of workflow management software touch every facet of an organization, from front-facing to back office-facing operations. Companies can rest easy knowing customer experience will begin seeing improvement, as predetermined workflows will ensure important information makes it to the right source at the right time without employees having to seek it out. This aids with troubleshooting customer complaints and smoothing the customer onboarding process, as companies will be able to control exactly what customers see, and when, reducing the chances they will become overwhelmed and quit the process entirely. Once customers have been with a company for awhile, the automated invoicing and payment processing capabilities of workflow management software keep them up-to-date without much effort required on anyone’s part.

It’s worth considering the benefits to the company itself, as well. Employee onboarding becomes a snap when workflows don’t have to be created from scratch and can be customized to fit a new employee’s method of working or to adapt to how a team may have shifted things up. Additionally, workflow management software often offers data to be used for improving processes across the board, reducing the chances an employee will be working within an outdated framework for too long. This enables employees to be hired as specialists who are more than capable of helping a company grow, rather than requiring them to act as generalists required to maintain a bit of technical know-how—not the sorts of employees who can hit the ground running.

All told, the right workflow management solution can save small businesses tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of workforce effort annually.

Conclusion

Workflow management software ties everything together for small businesses. It promotes communication within an organization by offering visibility into processes with the ability to make changes as needed. It encourages customers to trust small businesses by allowing for robust security and a thick layer of privacy protection. The software also requires few resources to operate, allowing small businesses to remain lean in their early days when it matters most.

Any small business that feels like its growth has been stunted should look to workflow software for the growth spurt it needs.

This article, “Workflow Management Software is the Missing Piece of the Small Business Puzzle” was first published on Small Business Trends